Political Economy of Larger Kurdistan: Borders, Exploitation, and Anti-Capitalist Theory and Practice

Session 1: Borders and Political Economy of Larger Kurdistan

Friday, January 22, 6:00 - 8:00 PM EST

The ECR is inviting you to our next series of reading groups focused on the economy of the Kurdish Middle East, including Rojava. Our first session on January 22 attempts to give a historical background to the establishment of borders and border economy, as well as the current economic situation in different parts of Kurdistan. Then we will focus on processes of resource extraction in broader Kurdistan and the exploitation of Kurdish workers by the capitalist nation-states that colonized them. We'll then move on to the anti-capitalist economic vision developed by the Kurdish movement in theory and practice, with a particular focus on the emerging cooperative economy in Rojava. We will have a conclusion session on the transformative potential of the democratic confederalist model.

The readings for the first session, January 22:

1. Life and labor on the internal colonial edge: Political economy of kolberi in Rojhelat by Kamal Soleimani and Ahmad Mohammadpour

2. The Conclusion Chapter of Veli Yadirgi's Political Economy of the Kurds of Turkey

3. "Obstacles to Insurrection: Militarised Border Crossings Hindering the Rojava Liberation Struggle" by Spencer Louis Potiker

4. Short video reports about the Kurdish border economy across Turkey, Iraq and Iran: Turkey: Kurdish Smugglers and The gruelling life of a Kurdish smuggler

Feel free to join the discussion even if you don't get a chance to do all the readings!

Please RSVP at info@defendrojava.org for the Zoom information and the PDFs of the readings.

See you there!